Best posts made by SparklesTheClown

@meg said in I DON'T WANT TO DATE YOU:

@HelloProject uhm, false.

Okay technically you are the exception.

@Bobotron Yeah but I think that's the point, that's what makes them hidden. Like, a lot of plot things in general, especially when I run plots, or even when I play characters, are based around player expectation. Understanding player expectation and doing things that kind of warp that perspective (and I don't mean lolrandomplottwist) is one way to make things a hell of a lot more interesting.

It not only plays to that expectation, but broadens it.

So like, I'm officially diagnosed as being bipolar. Incidentally, apparently there's a lot of coincidental symptoms that can make people think you're autistic when you have some of the most severe symptoms of being bipolar. For example, I don't just have regular mania, I have hypermania.

Anyway, I'm on this Latuda shit. I feel better. My emotions are more balanced out even though I still have regular negative emotions due to life circumstances, but I can manage.

I still haven't settled on a place, but I haven't forgotten you.

Just as an update, I'm currently getting my house together a bit more. I'm repairing things after my parents neglected it and hoarded things for so long.The cleaning bill for their hoarding was like $2000+, but it was worth it.

My bedroom studio setup is almost done. The "completed" (hahahaha) setup will have these things from this board I made: https://www.pinterest.com/DuanSparkles/my-music-setup/

I have roughly half those things already, but I'm chugging along.

I'm doing a little bit of freelancing. It's not the most reliable thing but it gives me a little money every now and then. My current projects are a Mutants & Masterminds book for Green Ronin, and a Pathfinder book for Paizo.

Oh and if you're curious about anything I've done in the past, I was one of the freelancers on this book: https://paizo.com/products/btpy9vmf?Aethera-Campaign-Setting

This is actually a preliminary thread for a future thread I plan to make. I need to gather data for the purposes of making the second thread.

In an environment that has sheet based advancement, what is the most significant aspect of that advancement to you? It's fine if you answer in general terms, in specifics, or whatever else. Any form of answer is acceptable, even if a form of advancement that you prefer is not actually currently available anywhere.

You can also go into as little or as much detail as you like. And this is not the time to be modest! This is a no shame zone. I want to know what makes you happy.

@Sunny I got my stats up I'm ready for these sexy nerds.

This all gives me a lot of interesting ideas. It's also nice that people seem to generally be more or less aligned around the same or similar needs.

My intent with all of this information is to create a general prototype of a simplified system that can be used in a long-form format. Though I might just convert specific tabletops, and start with WoD since it's big around here.

Now, I know people have done house rules and such, but what I'm thinking would be radically different from something like house rules. I'm thinking more taking an already existing system and pretty much using elements of it to create an entirely different system.

I know that might seem insane, but I'm pretty much considering doing the tabletop equivalent of chopping music samples and making a new song. Not gonna sell it or anything, I just wanna see if I can make MU*s better.

I also know that not everyone will be happy with it, and some people will get super rockist about it, but I say we should commit some blasphemies and see what we get out of it. My plan is for this to be a group project. I drop my prototype at some point, and then people can tear it apart and possibly find a way to test it and such.

@Derp Damn good point. I should increase my area.

re: Non-extreme triggers.

Almost any decent game I've been on encouraged communication and just generally not being a dick. Except for the most extreme edgelords of this hobby, there is barely a single person who is not in some way emotionally attached to their characters. I would say that even ignoring triggers, it should be common sense that doing something that will be ridiculously emotionally distressful and cause some hardcore angst will probably also be OOCly stressful in some way if they aren't expecting it.

That said, I have done plenty of roleplay in which my partner was fully open to angsty situations, and we played it very well, because our mutual expectations were communicated. We didn't always communicate the specifics, because being surprised can be fun, but we communicated our broad expectations. I don't care if I'm in WoD or playing Dragon Ball Z or something, I'm not going to go out of my way to ignore how someone might feel about me doing something, I'd rather our fun be mutual, regardless of the nature of it.

I personally don't know how anyone could enjoy a hobby that largely depends on communicating, if you don't consider mutual expectations to be an important aspect of it. This alone pretty much takes care of half the problems in this thread, with the exception of just dealing with downright toxic or problem players who are never happy with anything. But I personally don't see the logic in suddenly going "Well, some of these players suck, so fuck this mutual expectations nonsense".

Hell, if I may play the race card for a moment?

By that logic, I should just stop assuming that people will be decent human beings just because I'm black and sometimes people are really shitty about that, rather than just continuing to treat people as I want to be treated and hoping for the best.

If people are awful, stay away from awful people, but I don't think that should be used as an excuse to just not even try to make the effort to make sure that the people around you are enjoying themselves and are comfortable.

@Derp My hair is even longer now, since that was like two years ago!

@Kestrel It's okay the only reason I don't care is because I literally have an infobox on Google, so my privacy just doesn't exist lmao.

I should just note that I am noticing something that I've noticed in other threads that are supposed to be constructive, which is saying "No, this idea won't work", and then not offering a viable alternative.

If you don't have a viable alternative, then figure out how the idea that you're saying can't work, can work. I personally don't find it constructive to pick apart why everything can't work but never have anything to constructively offer after that.

Excuse the mess, still remodeling and cleaning and removing carpet in my room. But the PC is done and also the new monitor is a thing.

re: Sacrificial lamb

Back on String Theory, our metaplot ran in "seasons", and within those seasons would be other plots. Before the beginning of each season, they would basically look for sacrificial lambs, but you would have no idea who was chosen and in which plot they'd be dying in, or when. So most of what it did was make death feel very real and plausible for every single character around us, rather than actually make us know when to expect it or be spoiled.

Also, re: warnings, kmbm really has a solid idea there. Just put a warning on all your plots, even the ones that don't have anything happen. Your plots can just have a general rating of "this kind of thing might happen in my plots", so it won't spoil anything at all because people won't really know when you're dropping some crazy shit, but they know enough to expect it -of- you to avoid your plots if that's something that bothers them.

Hey. I wanted to update people a bit. I had/am having a pretty bad mental health crisis, so I ended up going idle everywhere for a while. I'm gonna try to ease myself back in, but I felt I should post something somewhere so that people know I didn't fuck off randomly.

Also if there's a way to resize images, you guys really need to add forum documentation somewhere.

It would have helped if Firan players weren't OOCly trying to dick each other over and pretty much hijacked the game with their bullshit.

And also that it wasn't run by a literal plot thief.

Otherwise, Star Crusade had everything going for it.

So, while brainstorming this design document, and trying to figure out a system, I've had a bit of a realization.

This might sound obvious of course, but I realize that there isn't really a "one size fits all" system. So what I'm actually going to do is form this system, and thoroughly detail the intent of the system, and the type of game that it's meant for. This might mean that I create more than one system (not for the same game, obviously).

But either way, creating different systems for different types of games, like a bit of an RP toolbox, seems like the best route.

Again, this might seem obvious to some people, but I really thought there might be a way to create a universal system. But the more I think about it, the more that just doesn't seem practical in a way that's actually fun to use.

@deadculture If the implication is that "anywhere fun" = "a culture of player toxicity", then yes, I have, pretty early on, and then decided that I don't hate myself.

Funny how that works.

I guess it's my millennial entitlement.

edit: Sorry, there are 246 games in my current world folder since I switched to MUSHClient (meaning there are a bunch of games I don't have a record of), so I guess I was being modest.

My current personal preference in MUing is to try to get a feel for staff before I even app a character, and look for red flags. Since I started doing that, I've had a significantly better time as far as not wasting my time in a place where everyone suddenly pulls off their masks and reveals a deep layer of shittiness.

I do this specifically because I used to have a lot of trouble trusting staff, and used to do the opposite (avoid them). It was a bit counterproductive. But it helps that I no longer play games where staff consider themselves lords on high above their entire playerbase, who make themselves unavailable.